1. Technical Field
This disclosure generally relates to content management systems, and more specifically relates to a content management system that autonomically generates structure during the processing of synchronization rules.
2. Background Art
A content management system (CMS) allows many users to efficiently share electronic content such as text, audio files, video files, pictures, graphics, etc. Content management systems typically control access to content in a repository. A user may generate content, and when the content is checked into the repository, the content is checked by the CMS to make sure the content conforms to predefined rules. A user may also check out content from the repository, or link to content in the repository while generating content. The rules in a CMS assure that content to be checked in or linked to meets desired criteria specified in the rules.
Known content management systems check their rules when content is being checked in. If the rule is satisfied, the content is checked into the repository. If the rule is not satisfied, the content is not checked into the repository. Known content management systems may include rules related to bursting, linking, and synchronization. Bursting rules govern how a document is bursted, or broken into individual chunks, when the document is checked into the repository. By bursting a document into chunks, the individual chunks may be potentially reused later by a different author. Linking rules govern what content in a repository a user may link to in a document that will be subsequently checked into the repository. Synchronization rules govern synchronization between content and metadata related to the content. For example, a synchronization rule may specify that whenever a specified CMS attribute is changed, a particular piece of XML in the content should be automatically updated with that attribute's value.
Known content management systems may not process a synchronization rule correctly if the synchronization rule identifies one or more structures that do not exist in a document. Thus, in order for a new synchronization rule that defines new structures to be correctly processed, first the CMS administrator or a CMS user (such as the author of the document) has to manually add the new structures to the document. Once the document has the new structure, the new synchronization rule that references the new structure may be properly processed. Without a way to automate some of the manual tasks normally performed by a CMS administrator, the computer industry will continue to suffer from the manual tasks that must be performed when a new synchronization rule that references new structures needs to be processed.